ACA: When a Mandate is Not a Mandate due to Mandated Omission

“In a speech at a Maryland community college last week promoting his namesake health reform law, President Obama mentioned the word "benefits" 10 times.

Free preventive care, coverage for children up to age 26, a better drug plan for seniors. "We're giving more benefits and protections," he said.

But there was one word Obama didn't mention once in his entire 51-minute talk. And that word was "mandate."


That's despite the fact that a central feature of ObamaCare is the requirement that all those adoring young people buy insurance or pay a fine, and is the key to whatever chances of success it has.


Mum On Mandate

Obama's silence about the mandate wasn't some aberration. He rarely brings the subject up when he talks about ObamaCare. Nor do other administration officials.

Nor do the $700 million worth of federal, state or private promotional campaigns now getting under way as the ObamaCare insurance exchanges open their doors for the first time. Some examples:

A 2-minute, 48-second-long video produced by the White House — which deputy senior adviser David Simas says "unpacks the law, piece by piece, in an incredibly simple way" — never once mentions the individual mandate.

On a Health and Human Services Web page devoted to the "Key Features" of ObamaCare, the mandate is buried at the bottom of a long list, and then referred to vaguely as "Promoting Individual Responsibility."

An ad produced by Obama's campaign spinoff group — Organizing for Action — talks about the rebate a family got, with the wife proclaiming that "the law works." There's no mention of the mandate.

A promotional website sponsored by Walgreen (WAG) and Blue Cross & Blue Shield highlights four things people need to know about the ObamaCare. None of them includes an explanation of the mandate.

A new pro-ObamaCare video from Funny or Die studios shows people getting injured in cringe-inducing ways to encourage young people to sign up, without talking about their requirement under the law to do so.” - The One Word Missing From All Those ObamaCare Ads, Investor’s Business Daily, 09/30/2013

Link to the entire article appears below:

http://news.investors.com/politics-obamacare/093013-673087-individual-mandate-missing-from-obamacare-ads.htm